Today’s New York Times reports that people who participated in STRRIDE a decade ago now have (A) better health than those who did not exercise and (B) displayed an unhealthy attraction to silly acronyms. Which group, of course, includes STRRIDE, or “Studies Targeting Risk Reduction Interventions through Defined Exercise.” Duke University, you should have known better than to saddle a perfectly good research program with a name like that. The acronym wasn’t worth it.
I can’t help wondering whether Duke expects people to roll the double-R in STRRIDE, a skill students learning Spanish often struggle with. I also wonder how often people reading about STRRIDE in the Times think they’ve discovered a typo.
Which brings me to another question: Who decides whether an abbreviation is an acronym, with its initial letters pronounced as a word (NATO = nay toe) or whether its letters are named (UN = you en)? Personally, I’d opt for making the shortened form of United Nations an acronym (uh nn), given how often the organization is unproductive. But that discussion itself is unproductive, so I’ll leave it alone. Instead, I’m forming ACRONYM, for those Against Chronic Ridiculous Overused Names Yielding Nonsense. Join today!
Sorry, Gerry. Count me out. It’s nonsense, not the post, but the last word. I might reconsider joining if you come up with a word that begins with M instead of N. Even though they cohabit the same three-letter sequence (M-N-O) in the alphabet, N is not a match. At least that’s my opinion, and also probably that of the folks at FIP. What about Malarky? Granted, it’s not a perfect match in meaning. And no one ever uses it much anymore, except maybe Joe Biden.
Ah, you caught a mistake. I’m going to change it to “malarkey,” which is a much better word than nonsense anyway, and, as you point out, fits the last letter in acronym. I could blame this on the flu, which I’m getting over, but old age is more likely. Thanks for the correction!
Thanks, you made my day. Also, it’s a comfort to know we suffer from the same conditions.
The flu, too? I know our only other shared condition is word-nerdism, as you’re quite young, right?
Hm.
Thumb up for ACRONYM-ITY too!
I have a close friend who terribly loves cats, and studies Information Technology. Once he called me to tell about his difficulties in compiling a program as an end-of-semester assignment. Paying attention to the meowing sound through the phone, and thinking to myself how he could concentrate on such a difficult task under those cats around him, I advised him to compile the program in another language: CAT.
He baffled asked what the “heck” of that language was. My answer: CODE ANIMAL TRANSCRIPTION.
Junior Santos
The acronym CAT works perfectly! Bravo.